The Dark Messenger (41 page)

Longinus could feel his power inside growing
exponentially as he reminded himself of the escape plan and the
gorgeous air that was awaiting him up above. It was as if his body
had had enough of this place too and wanted to leave now, and not
in a minute like the mind was telling it. The body could sense
freedom and was gearing itself up for the death-defying exit they
were about to be making.

Hoidrious stepped closer to the bars and
after staring at Raffious, he said in a calm, somewhat un-evil
voice, ‘Tomorrow night you will be led upstairs to where your
powers will work again. Then you and Dracus with this amulet will
leap to wherever you are holding Rex a prisoner, and then together
you will bring him back. If you try to escape, the collar will
shrink and suffocate you. No magic of yours can remove it. If you
move more than twenty feet away from the amulet that Dracus will be
holding, the necklace will start shrinking and no one can stop it,
not even Dracus.’

Raffious smiled and
like a creep,
then
assured him one hundred percent that he would bring Rex back and
apologized for the trouble he had caused him.

‘Finally we are leaving this fucking stinking
place.’ Longinus said with a loud but baited breath. As he said the
word stinking though, he suddenly realised that he wasn’t covering
his mouth or even felt the need to either. He seemed to be
breathing the putrid stench inside quite freely.

Then it dawned on him for a
horrible moment that he hadn’t been covering his mouth of recent at
all, plus the stench was nowhere near as bad now, as it was when he
had first arrived at this paradise hotel of doom. He shuddered at
the thought as suddenly a new memory popped into his mind- the
memory of his being told the very first time he was dragged along
the passageway about the killer effects the place had on its
prisoners. The jailers with their grim masks had said just after
kindly flattening his nose for him,
that
he shouldn’t worry, and
that he would get
used to the smell.
Only when he did, that
soon after incredible pain would begin to take over, and then
afterwards insanity would take its first foothold in his mind. And
then as if that hadn’t cheered him up no end, they gave him the
ultimate in happy news by adding there was more. They said that
after he had died, instead of resting in peace like humans, he
would wake up in the fires of HELL.

‘You wont be going anywhere,’ Hoidrious
suddenly boomed at him, ‘You will never be leaving these cells.
Raffious will be getting Rex, then afterwards he will be free, but
you will never be. Anyway something for you to look forwards too,
and just to add a nice ending to this day. In a couple days time,
we will come down and with a blunt axe, start amputating your
limbs. Or maybe like turning down a fine wine for another vintage,
you might prefer what we have in the cells beneath us instead?
There’s a rack or a brass bull. The first one is to dislocate your
limbs before pulling them off, or the second, being the bull, is
where we lock you inside it and then build a fire underneath the
thing. We will stoke the flames so they roar vehemently, until the
bull is screaming hot. Do you get the drift? ’ Hoidrious said with
a wide grin upon his face.

Longinus looked back at them with rage
burning within, but was clever not to let his anger show. Instead
he held a completely expressionless face as he readied himself for
challenging that idea, with his escape.

Raffious turned around and then sniggered at
him, ‘Sorry old boy, but I guess this is where you and I will be
parting company.’ He chortled in a mocking tone.

In Longinus’ head he had done his waiting,
listened to enough bull shit and was completely ready for the
escape. If any more goons turned up he might find it impossible to
pull it off and considering it was now about 5.30am, the time was
perfect too. He would get outside the main coven doors and then
have just a short time to fly away, before the sun reared it’s
murderously oppressive head. OK it would mean sleeping underneath a
car, or inside a chimney, or under a bridge, but it would only be
the once, then his next stop would be freedom. They would never
chance following him with only 30 minutes till sun up, and then
they would have no choice but to wait until 12 hours later when
darkness fell again. If he was lucky enough to find an unsuspecting
human out there too, then by the following evening when darkness
did finally begin to chase across the land, he would have fed and
rested too.

Longinus leant back against
the far wall, to give the impression that he was quite comfortable
and was no threat, and then he went for it. The first part
of
plan freedom
,
awake and ready in his mind, just got a green light for
go.

‘Okay, well, considering I’m having my limbs
amputated for being a spy, then Rex’s promise of lush lands and
being free from covens clearly isn’t going to be happening—even
though he said none of you would dare hurt me until you heard from
him first,’ he said to Hoidrious in a relaxed but very
condescending tone, before adding, ‘I suppose you might, you
miserable old bastard, like to learn something about our Raffious
here though, something that he hasn’t told you.’

Hoidrious snorted in derision. ‘Rex might
have said not to hurt you but I doubt he meant it. Let’s wait till
he gets back here and we can ask him then, shall we?’ He burst out
laughing.

Longinus got the drift and fully understood
his insinuation, which he had to agree was probably true. It was
highly unlikely that Rex would honor anything of the deal between
them, and would probably insist on killing him himself. Longinus
had known that even before he sought refuge with the White Coven,
but at the time he had had no choice; he had to stop the other half
of the Trucale vase from being stolen. Otherwise, if Raffious used
it, then it wouldn’t have be long before he would have ceased to
exist anyway.

Meanwhile, Raffious had reacted quickly to
Longinus’ remark. He spun around and gave Longinus an enraged look,
one that was meant to keep him from speaking further.

Then, just as quickly, he dropped the harsh
look and smiled. He doubted that Longinus could possibly say
anything now that would change their agreement in the slightest
anyway. No, in his mind this was just a ploy, a ruse, a last
pathetic and deeply wasted effort to try and seek a reaction.

‘What has Raffious not told me, then?’
Hoidrious sniggered. He turned around to look questioningly up at
his two goons, as if somehow they might be able to shed some light
on what Longinus was going on about.

They didn’t know of course, and in reply to
their master, they simply shrugged their shoulders. Hoidrious’ grin
disappeared; he rolled his eyes and sighed at their stupidity. “I
didn’t think you actually knew, you idiots,” he muttered.

‘Okay, here goes.’ Longinus rubbed his hands
together and grinned. He then glared across at the old bastard of a
cellmate and bared his fangs. ‘Now you are in deep shit without a
paddle, Raffious, old boy. You thought us vampires were stupid.
Well, wait till Hoidrious hears this.’ A smug expression rapidly
spread across his face.

He turned back to the coven leader, whose
eyes showed deep curiosity. ‘Has Mietioc come back from his last
mission for you yet? I know he hasn’t, see, because he and the
warriors you sent to Scotland are all dead.’

Hoidrious was about to answer when, even
before the first word had passed his lips, there was the
unmistakable sound of a visitor coming. But not any visitor—it
sounded like a heinous beast from the pits of hell.

Whoever was coming, as he or she charged down
the rock steps, the ground-shaking vibrations coupled with the
extremely heavy thuds of their feet, suggested that whoever it
might be, would easily fit into the ‘monster’ category
exceptionally well. There was also the sound of steel as it crashed
and grated sporadically against rock.

The sound was enough to
make Longinus forget he had just been speaking, whilst fear took
hold of his brain. He expected it to be an executioner, and that
Hoidrious had lied about amputation being tomorrow. His
subconscious mind suddenly started taunting him again,
saying,
‘They tricked you, and they are
going to chop your limbs off now.’

Raffious wasn’t far behind him with the
sinister thoughts. He knew he had made a deal, and thought that
freedom was only a day away, but the deal had been with a vampire
none-the-less. For all he knew the deal might stand, but they could
still chop off a limb or two, just as a warning.

As whoever was coming was nearly upon them,
the sound had a somewhat pernicious effect on Hoidrious as well.
For it was just as much a mystery to him, and he had been trying to
think of who could have the temerity to be coming down to the
cells. Once Longinus and Raffious had been captured, for his own
reasons he had told the whole coven that the dungeons were out of
bounds, so whoever it was, he knew they had no care for his rules
and with that thought, he reasoned that they were probably going to
be well armed too.

The goons had turned, but unlike the others,
they were well up for the confrontation they felt ensued. Grasping
their swords, they slid them up a few inches so that the
double-edged, razor-sharp blades were only just climbing out of
their sheaths. They paused and waited.

A second passed, and then suddenly those
heavy feet touched down in the end of the passageway with an all
mighty crash.

Longinus had been edging
himself away from his position and was now crouched in the corner
by the bench. His subconscious mind had started taunting him again,
saying,
‘They ain’t coming for amputation.
I bet in less than ten minutes you are dead
.’

He ignored his fears, banning them from
taking residence in his mind as he armed himself with the arrow
that he had pulled out of Raffious’ leg. When he had yanked it out
earlier, he had accepted it as the only weapon available should he
ever get the opportunity to escape. Therefore he had
surreptitiously rolled it under the bench for safekeeping, using
the back of his boot.

Now, with his gloved hand firmly grasped
around the arrow, he knew the time had come.

Hoidrious was in clear view of their new
visitor to the dungeons, and his face was bathed with deep and
utter shock.

As the goons also registered who it was, they
both turned around to Hoidrious for his confirmation, his orders of
what they should do.

Hoidrious muttered to the goons, but loud
enough for Longinus to hear, ‘How is Mietioc here? Angus told me he
had killed the Elite warriors.’

When Longinus heard Mietioc’s name mentioned,
coupled with Hoidrious’ overt look of extreme shock moments before,
it had startled him. He leapt up and grabbed the bars, slamming his
cheek up tight against the rusty metal so he could look down the
passageway.

Approaching at a slow pace
was the somehow
not
deceased, but
very much
alive,
Elite warrior, Mietioc. As he got
within twenty feet, it was clear, by his facial expressions and how
he was swinging his swords in slow circles, that he was harboring
deeply malevolent and wrathful views. It was also starkly evident,
by his tunnel-vision stare, that he was intent on killing them all,
or at least Hoidrious.

Even though he hadn’t seen Mietioc killed,
and for all he really knew the Elite warriors might not have died
as the stories of the past had suggested, still Longinus had gone a
long time thinking they were all dead. Now, seeing Mietioc brazenly
walking down the passage, and swinging his swords in true Mietioc
style, Longinus’ mind was momentarily lost in great shock.

Raffious, knowing he was,
or at least
thinking
he was directly responsible for the Elite warriors’ deaths,
now had fear dancing through his pathetic body. He was turning
around on the spot, and his hands were all over the place, a sort
of St. Vitus’ Dance of terror. He truly thought Mietioc was coming
for him, and his death was but moments away.

Longinus, however, was still taken back by
Hoidrious’ last remark. In fact, it was that last sentence that
brought him back to his senses. His brain spun for a second as he
tried to settle on the answer.

Did Hoidrious just slip up and reveal
something he shouldn’t have? Were Hoidrious and Angus allies, and
was he guilty of treason? Had he ordered the Elite warriors to be
killed?

Then, as he ran Hoidrious’
words back around in his mind, he also thought that maybe he was
completely wrong, and that after Mietioc had arrived in Scotland
his surprise attack had actually failed. Then as a result, Angus
had phoned Hoidrious and told him the Elite warriors were all
killed.
But how did Mietioc
escape?

Mietioc, who had now stopped in the
passageway and was standing within range of a battle with the
goons, told them assertively to get out of his way.

Hoidrious interjected by demanding, ‘How are
you here? Angus phoned us the day after you left for Scotland and
said you were all killed in his ambush room! He said because of the
attack we were at war, and then slammed the phone down.’